


The stain at the crossroads

by OnButterflyWings



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnButterflyWings/pseuds/OnButterflyWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A death for a life. At the crossroads, one petitioner and an ancient goddess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The stain at the crossroads

It’s hard to move when you’re pregnant. It’s harder when swaddled in blankets. The heat has been off for a week now. With the heat the last lightbulb died, and for a while candles were used until they became scarce. Now they are only lit one by one. 

There is something symbolic about opening the last can. When there is nothing left but the metal shell, things feel empty. 

She filled the tub with hot water, it’s hard work to heat up so much with so little gas. The water from the pipes was enough to fill the tub. Now water that was once hot, is but tepid. 

Moisture ran down the walls, as she cleaned away the damp from the mirror. She struggled to stand in front, three toothbrushes hung in the loose holder. Even though Emiel and Ingrid had died two weeks ago, the smell of decay haunted the apartment. No matter how hard she wrapped the blankets around their bodies, the smell would just permeate harder along the remains of her family. 

She looked at herself in the mirror, sullen face, long dark hair matted across her brow. A soot stain from the fire had browned her nose that she wiped self consciously. It didn’t go away.

She had aged quickly in the past few weeks, years added by the pain of childbearing. The two deaths of husband and daughter borne with even more weight. 

The cabinet behind the mirror was hard to open up with shaking hands. Inside were the various lotions, the mixture of medications, and shaving gear. She pulled out Emiel’s straightback razor. 

Closing the mirror with more force than necessary, she looked at herself, one hand on her belly, one hand with the razor outstretched against her neck. The sharpness breaking skin. The blood glittered dark in the single yellow candlelight.

She turned away from the mirror, tears breaking free from her eyes, kneeling to lying curled up, as she held on to the razor with tight angry fists, before the coughing of no end started. 

How long she lay, can only be determined by the guttering of the candle. Pulling herself up, she lit the last candle. It too was already half spent. 

In the feeble light, she disrobed, stopping at times to cough. The skin revealed was spotted with great port wine stains that were becoming black in the middle. Growths that moved with the drafty bathroom and then moved again were starting to appear from the black. 

The bathtub was a luxury from another time. Now it served the new needs of her, as she lay down in the tepid waters. The razor straight as she cut along her veins. The rivulets of blood emptying into the darkening seas of the bath. 

Time moved slowly as two hearts beat together, a faltering, and an inky blackness covered the world. The last sound was the water spilling on to the floor, a blade clattering along the tub. Underwater bells rang in drowned churches in the darkest seas. 

—

The darkness lifted into twilight, hard pebbles crunched underfoot as the path ahead emerged. Mist still swirled around. Leather slapped against the road as she continued to walk her cloak huddled closely around herself. 

From the mist, a road side shrine emerged. Christ chiseled from unforgiving wood, his emaciated eyes staring listlessly at the pile of stones next to him. She picked up a weighty stone from the already depleted pile and moved further down the path. 

The path wove around between hills and valleys, the signs of men eventually ceased until only a heavy rough deer path reached up along the ninth hill amongst the dew filled heather.

At the top of the hill was a crossroads of sorts, a pile of stones lay nearby. No trees grew here, only underbrush. 

The stone rough and heavy dropped from her listless hands. It rolled it’s way up hill weaving itself into the pile. Voices began to emerge from the silence not even the wind would dare to break. 

“It’s all well and good for you to go around dropping thread, but who is it that will have to clear it up but me?” said the weary first voice

“It’s not my fault it rolled up the hill this way. it’s not like I come here often. Also the rabbits and the deer were so enticing in their play, what else am I to do?” said the cheery second voice. 

“Are you sure it was but deer and rabbits, not some young buck that caught your eye?” said the amused third voice.

“Mother!” said the second

“Hush.” said the third.

“What have we here?” said the first. 

Out from among the mist, an elderly crone emerged guiding a dark violet thread with one hand and shears in the other. Upon her head a garland of flowers long dead sat.

Behind the crone came the second, a young maiden traipsing in boredom quick to look around, the thread twisting fretfully and fretlessly in her hand. Upon her head a garland of forest flowers picked but this spring morning adorned her features. 

Lastly behind the young maiden, came a matronly woman who carefully gathered the string into a ball. The crown of harvest time grains lay heavy across her regal brow. 

The crone stopped a good distance from she. The crone lifted up the snarled and matted thread separating the two. 

“Oh.” said the second

“Hush, you.” Said the third. 

“You are far away from the kingdom of your gods child.” said the first. 

“I… I. don’t know. I was lead here by my feet. I’ve come to save…”

“Her husband wrongly taken away from her. Her daughter snatched in the night. Request for her own life, leaking away rose blooms.” said the second, snapping her fingers impatiently, her other hand lifting the thread up and down with each emphasis. 

The regal looking woman, touched the mouth of the maiden, stopping her tirade with a brush. She handed the ball of gathered string to the maiden. And with a stern gaze behind, and a softening gaze in front she touched the mouth of she interrupted. 

A breath, inhale, exhale. “I’m here to save my child. Everyone else is dead. I too am dying.”

She held her hands aloft, blood trickling down into dweomer ending in the hanging violet tangle in front of the crone. 

“I wish to give my life for that of my child.”

“Stupid, naive child.” the crone said “Go back to your decaying world.” The crone brandished her shears at the nose of the supplicant. 

“This is no place for a child. There is nothing here for a child. He needs his dolls and books, and parents telling him off for pulling on his older sister’s hair. Go back from this dream world into your banal world.” the maiden said, she advanced closer towards the supplicant, menacing malice in her movements. 

“This is no place for a child or for you. We have agreements, and yours do not agree.” 

“I carried the weighty stone up across the nine hills and down the nine valleys, I have delivered the stone as offering to the mound. What more can you wish of me?”

“Everything” all three eyes to hers, faces matching in expression, voices in unison. The thread aloft.

“I have nothing further to give, for all else has been taken away from me.”

Two remained fierce, but the third softened, she approached “You have one thing to offer, but for us to agree changes will be made.”

She touched the woman, warmth of a harvest moon spreading across her body. The warmth lingered.

A shudder spread along her distended belly, it made her clutch at it. 

The violet increased as the maiden, mother and crone tugged along the thread weaving it into string. A child burbled confused, it was small but breathing. 

“Look upon your child and despair.” The first intoned. 

“May you only have daughters,” the second giggled

“Hush.” said the third, “she has your eyes.”

The daughter looked at the supplicant mother with violet eyes. 

—

The water was dark, the half candle long since extinguished. The bodies still lay where they had fallen. Decay had not touched them. The mother still lay submerged, white body luminescent. While the mirror was dirt covered obscuring the rest, I could still see in its reflection my violet eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> This deals with when is suicide acceptable, the idea of drifting into a liminal dreamworld, making a deal and then having that deal come into fruition in a way in which the petitioner perhaps was not expecting. 
> 
> This was surrounding the goddess Hekate, Queen of the Crossroads. Instead of having her as one goddess with three faces, have her as three characters of different personalities.


End file.
